The Cynefin Project is a crowdsourced effort to digitize some 1,200 tithe maps from mid-19th century Wales. Volunteers can transcribe text from the maps and place markers so that they can be georeferenced. Here’s their short introductory video:
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Cavallini and Company is a stationery and gifts company that uses vintage imagery from the 19th and 20th centuries in its products, including botanical drawings, travel posters—and maps. There are map calendars, file folders, pencil cases, notebooks, magnets and wrapping papers, among many other items. You’ll often find them in stationery and map stores.
This month I decided to participate (at least a little) in A Month of Letters, and for that I needed to restock my stationery supply. Since I’m known to have a thing about maps, I figured I’d try out two of Cavallini’s products: their vintage map postcards and their vintage map stickers. Both come in metal tins that feel retro in and of themselves.
New Horizons mission scientists have created a geological map of a portion of Pluto’s terrain. “This map covers a portion of Pluto’s surface that measures 1,290 miles (2,070 kilometers) from top to bottom, and includes the vast nitrogen-ice plain informally named Sputnik Planum and surrounding terrain. As the key in the figure below indicates, the map is overlaid with colors that represent different geological terrains. Each terrain, or unit, is defined by its texture and morphology—smooth, pitted, craggy, hummocky or ridged, for example. How well a unit can be defined depends on the resolution of the images that cover it. All of the terrain in this map has been imaged at a resolution of approximately 1,050 feet (320 meters) per pixel or better, meaning scientists can map units with relative confidence.”
The Ordnance Survey has created a map of Mars. “The one-off Ordnance Survey Mars map, created using NASA open data and made to a 1:4,000,000 scale, is made to see if our style of mapping has potential for future Mars missions.” It looks very much like a topographic map of Mars might; the reduced version is a bit more screen-friendly.
In a circular distributed earlier this month (PDF), the U.S. Coast Guard sets out rules allowing mariners to use electronic charts instead of paper charts to fulfil the requirements of keeping charts on board a vessel. “Due to the current state of technology, the Coast Guard believes that official electronic charts provide substantially more information to the mariner, and therefore may enhance navigational safety beyond that of official paper charts.” Commenters on the Practical Sailor’s Facebook page are by and large skeptical. [via]
A facsimile of Mitchell’s New General Atlas, first published in 1860 by August Mitchell Jr. with hand-coloured maps, is now available from Schiffer Publishing. “This reproduction of Mitchell’s New General Atlas restores all 76 maps from the original plus its 26 pages of geological, statistical, and geographic information from 1860. Included are intriguing looks at the political boundaries of the United States at the outbreak of the Civil War, as well as maps of other countries and regions that look vastly different today.” Press release. [via] Buy at Amazon (Canada, U.K.)
L. R. Klemm’s Relief Practice Map: Roman Empire (above) is an example of the printed tactile maps used to teach sighted and blind students alike during the nineteenth century. [via]
Most of the maps for blind and visually impaired users I’ve encountered to date are of modern provenance. Previously on The Map Room: Joshua Miele’s Tactile Maps; A View of Prague for the Blind; Virtual 3D Maps for the Blind; Maps for the Visually Impaired; Maps and Directions for the Blind; Online Maps for the Visually Impaired.
The Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials (Cartographic), available as a PDF file (direct link), “provides instructions for cataloging rare cartographic materials, that is, cartographic materials of any age or type of production receiving special treatment within a repository.” This is a substantial, technical document (364 pages), mainly of interest to librarians with rare and old maps under their care.
With an increased focus on the security of rare cartographic materials, DCRM(C) addresses the need for a stand-alone set of rules that covers the treatment of atlases, maps, and globes, both printed and manuscript, including the analysis of cartographic works in books or other resources, and can be used by any institution that houses these materials. The creation of a standard eliminates the need for each institution to develop extensive local practices for the treatment of rare cartographic works, and makes it possible for institutions with smaller collections to benefit from both the sophisticated tradition of rare materials cataloging and the awareness of the cartographic community of the particular qualities of our materials.
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The Michigan State University Map Library now has on display three copper plates used to make the 1912 USGS topographic map of the Lansing, Michigan area. “From the 1880s to the 1950s, the U.S. Geological Survey used engraved copper plates in the process of printing topographic and geographic quadrangle maps. Copper alloy engraving plates were inscribed with a mirror image of the points, contour lines, symbols, and text that constitute a topographic map. Each plate was inscribed with details for a single color of ink.” [via]
Local Maine media is reacting to the news that Garmin is buying DeLorme, which is based in Yarmouth. Here’s coverage from the Portland Press Herald, which notes that the Maine headquarters will be maintained, but the map store will close. (Eartha will continue to be open to the public.) There is no news about the future of DeLorme’s Maine Atlas and Gazetteer, the paper-based product that started DeLorme off in 1976, which is worrying the Bangor Daily News’s outdoors editor John Holyoke.
The Ordnance Survey is currently running a map return scheme, in which customers send in their old maps in return for a voucher up to £15. It runs until March 20, but they’ve already received 9,000 maps so far. (A similar scheme in 2014 yielded 10,000 maps in total.) Some of the maps returned date back to the early 1900s. (I hope the OS makes sure they’ve got a complete set of everything; it wouldn’t do to give away the the last copy of an obscure older edition for an art project. If nothing else there’s an opportunity for a crowdsourced archive here.)
CBC News: “A German website called Hoax Map is debunking false rumours about refugees throughout Germany and Austria, many of which range from the absurd to the disturbing.” Here’s the link; in German.
A copy of one of the oldest maps in Britain, now exploring the newest frontier here in space #mappamundi pic.twitter.com/ghSp3PmV2f
— Tim Peake (@astro_timpeake) February 11, 2016
A copy of the Hereford Mappa Mundi, brought to the International Space Station by British astronaut Tim Peake, turned up on Twitter yesterday. BBC News has the details. [via]
In response to The End of Maps in Seven Charts, Duncan Jackson writes to point out the above xkcd comic from 23 November 2012, which says something quite similar about maps that really just show population density.
Esri’s Solar System Atlas collects maps of all the planets, dwarf planets, moons, asteroids and comets that have been visited by spacecraft in one location. (At least the ones with solid surfaces.) Now keep in mind that maps of other objects in the solar system are generally spacecraft imagery stitched together into a mosaic and displayed on a map projection, and this is mostly what is presented here (plus some colourized topographic maps and a few geologic maps). Not many of the maps are labelled, which is a shame: bare imagery isn’t terribly useful. Also, the map tiles load slowly, and zooming out doesn’t always refresh them. But as a concept, I’m all for this. More from Esri’s Matt Artz. [via]
